Ted Grant

France Threatened—Franco-type Coup?

The running sore of Algeria still remains the major problem
facing French capitalism. Every day brings its toll in the towns and
countryside of Algeria of its dead and wounded. In the centres of European
population, especially Algiers and Oran, the reactionaries of the O.A.S.
[A] have
organised to try and cow the Muslim population by lynchings and assassinations.
This is a counter-terror to the terror campaign of the F.L.N.

The war of liberation of the F.L.N. has undoubtedly
obtained the support of the overwhelming majority of the Algerian population in
the countryside and in the towns. The endeavour to obtain a “military victory”
continued by de Gaulle as by his predecessors has been a complete failure. Once
the Algerians had developed a national consciousness it was impossible to
defeat them. Despite the decimation of the population the struggle continues.
The new generation, even more than the old, continues the struggle. The retreat
of Imperialism in the rest of North Africa, in Tunis and Morocco; the conceding
of independence to the rest of French Africa, have reinforced the determination
of the Algerian people to be free.

Under these circumstances French Imperialism has reluctantly
concluded that the continuation of the war can only weaken French capitalism,
without gaining any positive result. The war is costing French capitalism from
£800 million to £1,000 million a year, and weakening her for the role she
wishes to play in Europe. De Gaulle, as the most serious representative of Big
Business has long come to the conclusion that the effort to hold down Algeria is
not worth while, and therefore wishes to conclude the best bargain that French
capitalism can obtain in negotiations with the Algerian nationalists.

De Gaulle’s fears

The main stumbling block to agreement has been the fears of
the reaction of the French officer caste and of the European population of
Algiers, Oran and the other cities of Algeria. The ruling class and the de
Gaulle Government fear another attempt at a coup d’etat this time not only in
Algeria but also in France.

The European population including the white working class,
in Algiers, Oran and the other cities of Algeria have gone over to the gangster
reaction of the O.A.S. This despite the fact that at one stage the Socialist
Party and the Communist Party had widespread support among the European working
class, as well as among the Algerians. This has been lost by the cowardly
policies of these parties which failed to offer the Algerian and French masses
the perspective of a Socialist Algeria, linked in fraternity to a Socialist
France. Thus the European workers without any perspectives or leadership have
succumbed to the prevailing chauvinism and in the majority have supported
passively or actively the O.A.S.. That also has happened to the “little men”,
the small shop-keepers, professional people and lower ranks of civil servants.

Meanwhile in France itself there has been a growing
weariness of the senseless and interminable war to hold down the Algerian
people. The overwhelming majority of the people, not only the working class but
the middle class as well, desires peace.

Yet despite the reaction of the people to the last Algiers
coup when the conspirators were compelled to call off the attempt in face of
the 12 million strong general strike, the biggest general strike in history,
and the refusal of the conscripts in Algeria to obey the orders of the rebel
generals, France faces the possibility of a renewed attempt by the fascist and
quasi-fascist gangsters. How is this possible in the face of the opposition of
the overwhelming majority of the French people?

Marxist analysis of the state

The answer can only be given by a Marxist understanding of
the state and of society. The officer core, trained, selected and organised by
the capitalist class to defend its interests is reactionary in its big majority.
They have been imbued with the ideology of militarism. They blame the
successive defeats of the French Army in Europe, in Asia and in Africa on the
French people and its rights. They burn with hatred of the working class. Their
outlook is very similar to that of the German army after the First World War,
when the forerunners of the Nazis, the Freikorps,
composed of ex-officers and the scum of German society conducted a campaign of
assassinations and murders. Many later became Stormtroopers and S.S. Men.

In Algeria this corps has organised reprisals, torture and
murder. They have forcibly “re-settled” hundreds of thousands of the Algerians.
Their whole outlook is coloured by brutality, ignorance, arrogance and
chauvinism. But to take action against this cadre, would be to saw away the
trunk on which the state rests. Marx and Lenin never tired of emphasising that
the state could be reduced to “armed bodies of men”. Without these armed bodies
of men, police, army etc. the capitalists would be powerless. Consequently de
Gaulle and the capitalists cannot take action against these cadres without
undermining their own rule.

Impunity of O.A.S. criminals

Thus the crimes which blacken the name of the French people
continue with impunity, on the part of the perpetrators, as they did in
Germany. Salan and the other criminals continue contemptuously their
preparations for a new attempt. The state apparatus, the police, and the army
are riddled with sympathisers and members of the O.A.S. The latest glaring
example has been the acquittal of the torturers of a Muslim woman by an army
court-martial. The facts were beyond dispute, the woman died, doctors testified
to the means of torture, particularly bestial, but the criminals go scot free.
Officers arrested somehow or other succeed in escaping. The O.A.S. continue
their insane campaign of plastic bombs in France…few are arrested.

Action is taken, of course, against a police trade union
secretary who protested against a Government ban on an anti O.A.S.
demonstration by the trade unions, Catholic and Communist. Here the de Gaulle
Government is swift to act. But the real reason for the immunity of those
sections of the officer caste who are plotting and preparing treason is the
fear of the undermining of the power of the state, which would open the road to
the overthrow of capitalism.

The French “Socialist” leaders who pretend to stand on the
basis of Marxism, the French “Communist” leaders who pretend to stand on the
basis of the teachings of Lenin, have forgotten all the lessons of the class
struggle, especially the rich history of France. If it depended on them the
road would be clear for the victory of reaction. The French C.P. is working for
a new Popular Front—i.e. an agreement between the workers’ organisations and the
alleged “progressive” capitalists. In the Daily
Worker of January 9th Sam Russell writes: “...of that famous
Popular Front which did so much for the people of France...” It was the
strike-breaking conspiracy of the Popular Front which prepared the way for reaction
in France. J. Berlioz, C.P. leader was compelled to write in the C.P. journal
now World News and Views on December
10th, 1938: “The sentiment in favour of unity (C.P.-S.P.) is now
increasing, above all among those workers
who realise the ominous consequences of the concessions which have been
made to the forces of capital by the various Popular Front Governments.”

These people when it comes to applying Marxism spit on the
basic teachings of Marx and Lenin. Their “Marxism” is but a means to fool the
working class and the people. Marxism is not a set of pious incantations but a
guide to action especially at periods of tense class struggle.

Form defence committees

Had the Communist Party of France retained an iota of the
method of Marx and Lenin they would have been systematically preparing the
working class for the battle. They would have agitated on the lines of “no
confidence in the ruling class and its institutions”. They would have prepared
systematically an agitation for defence committees in the factories, for armed
guards of workers defence, for committees in the army, for active solidarity
with the Algerian people, for the control of the officers in the army by
soldiers’ committees, committees in the Air Force and Navy joining with the
committees of workers to defend the rights of the French working class and
French people. Above all they would have explained the need for a Democratic
Socialist France as the only answer and guarantee against such conspiracies.

Fortunately for the people of France and for the French
working class the issue will not be decided by the policy of the leaders of the
working class. The last coup was a dress rehearsal not only for reaction…but
for the working class. Their reaction to a new reactionary uprising will be even
stronger than the last. If the O.A.S. maniacs stage a new uprising they will
provoke a counter-movement which could be the beginning of the Socialist
revolution in France. This could only be successful by a mass split in the
Communist Party by a left wing determined to struggle for a Marxist class
policy.

Events in France and internationally—especially the crisis
of Stalinism in the Soviet Union—have prepared the way for such an eventuality.
The French C.P. was formed by a majority of the French Socialist Party. Thus a
new split would be in the tradition of French Socialism. Joining with the
French Marxists they would prepare the way for the winning of power by the
working class as the only solution to the problems plaguing the French people
for the past decades.

Notes:

[A]Organisation
de l'armée secrète (“Organization of the Secret Army”). French far-right
terrorist organisation during the Algerian War (1954-62). The O.A.S. used
terrorist tactics, often with the complicity and cover of the French military,
to prevent Algeria’s independence. Its motto was “Algeria is French and will
remain so”.